


Straightforward

by yotoob



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yotoob/pseuds/yotoob
Summary: Eve thinks about getting her hair cut short. Villanelle reacts in totally normal and chill ways





	Straightforward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [berrysck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/berrysck/gifts).

> This is a birthday gift for Berry! Happy Birthday you wonderful and old person xx

“I’m thinking about cutting my hair.”

Villanelle misjudges the trajectory of the water, and nearly scalds herself whilst handling a kettle. “Shit” she mumbles, and then grabs a paper towel, wiping up the spill quickly before Eve can notice. Villanelle swirls a quick spoon though her instant coffee, and ignores Eve. She walks away from the little kitchen station in their temporary shared office, and returns to the investigation board.

A picture of Aaron Peel stares at her. He looks… extremely unfun. Villanelle cannot stand boring people. She can almost hear the inevitable bland monotone.

She takes a sip of her coffee, wincing because it is far too hot.

Eve is standing at the other corner of the office, in front of a window. As it is dark outside, her reflection is clear. When Villanelle finally turns to look at her, when it can’t be avoided any more, Eve is in the action of piling up her hair onto her head, revealing the back of her neck to Villanelle in a way that feels like a deliberate attack. She turns one way and another, as though trying to judge.

She catches Villanelle watching her, much to Villanelle’s annoyance. “What do you think?”

Villanelle shrugs.

“It’s your hair.”

“It is.” Eve says firmly, and returns to her reflection.

_Don’t_, Villanelle tries to project at her. _ Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t-_

“I don’t know” Eve says thoughtfully, dropping her hands and letting her hair fall back down her back in a further attack. “You know when you just get…tempted? To do something different? Be someone different?”

Villanelle, who has been three different people since she got out of bed this morning, takes a sip of her coffee.

“No. I’d never cut my hair short.”

“Hmm” Eve says, glancing at Villanelle, and then at the clock. “Well, I’m going home, we’re not getting any further tonight.”

…..

In her apartment, Villanelle stares at herself in the mirror, unseeing. 

She picks up her hair, and copies Eve, turning this way and that, before dropping it again with a snort.

Villanelle opens her computer, and types ‘why do women cut their hair short’, and browses the first few articles. However she rapidly realises that the answers are going to inconclusive, and closes her laptop with a snap before lying back on her bed.

She doesn’t want Eve to cut her hair. It’s a powerful wrench, an idea straight from her gut. 

Villanelle likes the things that she likes. She likes Eve, she likes Eve’s hair, she doesn’t want anything to change, ever, especially not Eve’s hair.

Would she still like Eve with short hair?

Yes, she thinks so. But… what if she doesn’t? Villanelle knows too well that her brain is sometimes treacherously unpredictable, and there have been many times when Villanelle knows that she was supposed to have a huge reservoir of love, was sure she felt that just the day before, and then…. it was like some switch in her brain had flipped, and she stopped feeling anything at all.

Villanelle likes Eve, but more importantly, she likes _liking_ her. It’s a rare, happy, engaged feeling, and Villanelle wants to wrap the warmth of her feelings around her like a duvet, bask in it.

She worried that if Eve cuts her hair…. Villanelle thinks that Eve is different, that Eve is the one who will stay in her brain no matter what, but-

What if-

Villanelle sighs, and then reaches for the corner of her duvet, and then rolls, rolls until she is entirely wrapped in duvet.

Hmm.

Anyway, Eve said she was only _thinking_ about it.

…..

It’s nice, to have something not crazy, not weird, to talk to Eve about. Villanelle thinks that this is maybe what a normal conversation would look like, if she and Eve led normal lives.

“Have you ever had it short before?”

Eve looks up at her from her laptop, startled. Villanelle perches on the edge of Eve’s desk, emulating the casual office aura that she has picked up by watching office based comedies on Netflix.

“Huh?”

It’s three days later. Villanelle realises that maybe the haircut conversation has not been swirling around Eve’s mind in the same way it has been haunting Villanelle’s.

Jess, the other one, is staring at her. Villanelle presents a smile to her, and then looks back at Eve, who is staring at her as well.

“Uh, what?”

Villanelle refrains from sighing, and then gestures at her own hair.

“Your hair.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Uh. No. I haven’t.”

“Mmm” says Villanelle, suddenly realising that she hasn’t prepared any follow up questions. “Well. Okay.”

“Okay”, Eve says slowly, her gaze flickering from Villanelle’s face to her own computer screen. Villanelle leans forward on impulse, and glances at the screen. It is familiar. 

“Oh. Yes. He was one of mine” she says helpfully, of the corpse on the screen. “But that was about six months ago, why are you looking at him, you can just ask me?”

“Yeah” says Eve distantly, not sounding completely normal. “I was just…reminding myself of the key indicators of your style, in order to be able to distinguish between your… work, and other people in your line of work.”

This feels almost like a compliment, and Villanelle nods happily.

Jess is still staring at her. Villanelle refrains from pulling a face back.

“Okay, well, if you want to talk about your hair I am here.”

Eve looks at Villanelle as if she has grown an extra head, which seems unreasonable, this is how people talk to each other.

“Why would I need to talk about my hair?”

“To, you know? Help you decide? Whether to cut it? I have very good taste, you can trust me.”

Eve blinks a couple of times, and then says “oh…kay. Thanks.”

…

Villanelle decides that that went very well.

She starts googling hairdressers near to Eve’s house.

Then she realises that’s a stupid idea because Eve would have _one_ hairdresser that she would go to every time she needs a cut.

Villanelle needs to know who that is.

…

“Kenny.”

“I- hello. I didn’t know you knew my name actually-”

“Kenny, how illegal can you be?”

“Wha-”

“On the computers, you know? Can you be illegal?”

“Uh, nothing I do is illegal if it is a sanctioned order from the security services, so sometimes if I have to do things that would be illegal for civilian hackers, I’m covered by my job role-”

“Okay sure, so I need you to hack into Eve’s phone.”

“Um. No?”

“I need you to do it or I will bludgeon you to death with this stapler”

“No you won’t, because that would get you kicked out of this office, and you like working with Eve.”

“Fine. I need a favour?”

“You just threatened to kill me.”

“As friends, Kenny. We’re friends.”

“You’ve literally never spoken to me-”

There isn’t a sigh big enough, but Villanelle gives it a shot, and then produces Eve’s phone from her pocket.

“So, I stole Eve’s phone, but she’s changed her pin number into something more cryptic, and then I was trying to watch her unlock her phone, but that was difficult - she’s very private isn’t she? But I know for certain that the first number is seven, so what can you do with that?”

“With the number seven?”

“Yes.”

Kenny looks blankly at his screen for a second, and then looks back at her.

“I’m not hacking Eve’s phone for you.”

“Kenny, please- it’s not for anything _bad_, I just want to know where she goes to get her hair cut.”

Kenny’s face doesn’t change at all.

“Uh. Have you considered just… asking her?”

Villanelle blinks.

Oh.

Kenny snorts after a second.

“You might find life is more simple, if you look for the more straightforward route through challenges.”

Villanelle hefts the stapler in her hand, enjoying the brief look of panic on Kenny’s face.

“Thank you Buddha, I will remember that. See you later.”

…..

“Eve, I found your phone-”

“Oh thank god, I’d been looking for that, where did you find it?”

Villanelle grins at her, and then crosses her arms across her chest, taking care not to crumple her blazer.

“Bathroom. So, I was wondering, where do you go to get your hair cut?”

Eve’s eyebrows flicker, and then it is as though her face goes deliberately smooth, still and calm as water.

“Uh, why?” she asks distractedly, looking at her phone briefly before chucking it in her bag. This time Villanelle has prepared her follow up question.

“I want to get my hair cut, and I don’t know anywhere around here. And your hair always looks so nice.”

Eve laughs slightly. “You wouldn’t want my hairdressers, I’d imagine you spend considerably more on your hair than I do on my hair…”

Villanelle shrugs with one shoulder.

“I am on a budget now, the Twelve no longer pay me.”

Eve eyes her sceptically, and then reaches back into her bag for her phone.

“Can I just say, that this is the most mundane conversation I have ever had with an international assassin.”

“You flirt” Villanelle murmurs easily. Eve gives her a dark look, and then taps at her phone.

“I go to a guy called Jason, let me give you the salon’s number…”

…..

Villanelle spends half a day deciding how to kill Jason.

Obviously scissors should be involved, but that feels too obvious somehow, too boring, too straightforward-

She remembers Kenny’s advice, and then rolls her eyes at herself.

“Thank you Buddha” she murmurs to herself, whilst picking up a different make up brush, and peering at herself in her mirror.

….

Jason is very straightforward to make friends with.

All it takes is one wash and blow dry, and for Villanelle to be her most charming throughout, and suddenly she has a new best friend.

The problem is that she needs speed, Eve could be about to have her hair cut _tomorrow_, and Villanelle would have no way of knowing-

Maybe she _should_ kill him, Villanelle muses to herself, and she taps his number into her phone and laughs at one of his jokes. That would be the most efficient route to ensuring that Eve definitely didn’t get her haircut.

But then Jason seems nice, and has been _very_ complimentary about almost every aspect of Villanelle physical appearance. And besides, if she kills Jason, Eve might just find another hairdresser. In fact she probably would.

Villanelle momentarily applies herself to the notion of murdering every hairdresser in the entirety of North London, but then dismisses it as impractical. 

“Okay- tomorrow night for drinks? You can show me where to go, I’m not familiar with this area yet-”

Jason grins at her benevolently.

“No problem, I’ll look after you.”

…..

Villanelle feels a momentary flicker of irritation that Jason isn’t grasping the situation _instantly._

“Look, this is perfectly simple-” Villanelle tries again, over the loud music of this bar, “Eve. I need you to not cut her hair.”

Jason gives her a baffled smile.

“You are… one drink in, how are you making this little sense? Who is Eve?”

Villanelle nearly passes out, because the _notion_ of explaining who Eve is?

“Eve Polastri? Asian woman with amazing hair? You cut her hair?”

“I do?”

“Yes? You do. Anyway she is going to call you and book to have a haircut, and she wants to get it really short, like, neck line, I mean, she has a great neck, but also I don’t want to see it all the time, because I want her hair to still be long, because she has amazing hair, so I need you to talk her out of having it cut, maybe just a trim, but -”

“Is Eve your girlfriend? What is happening?”

Villanelle pulls a face.

“No, obviously she is not my girlfriend, if Eve was my girlfriend I would just tell her that she has incredible hair and I want to live in it and I definitely don’t want her to cut her hair-”

Jason holds up a finger to pause her, which is probably for the best because maybe she isn’t making any sense at all.

“Okay well, this has been cute and weird. So, you came to me to convince me to not cut another client’s hair? This was the plan?”

Villanelle rolls her eyes. “Yeah, duh, obviously?”

…..

So apparently this was weird? Jason tells her so, as he leaves. 

Villanelle isn’t entirely sure about this, but Jason left pretty quickly, and did not swear to cooperate with Villanelle’s really well thought through plan.

Villanelle had made a really good argument, and she had been extra demanding, and borderline threatening, and frankly she doesn’t see what else she could do other than _crying_-

Wait.

She jumps up, and darts after him. 

Villanelle catches up with him half way up the street. He scoffs when he sees her, and looks sourly down at her as she greets him.

“Hey-”

“Oh lord, what now?”

Villanelle gestures vaguely at him.

“How about I just pay you?”

“What?”

“A thousand pounds? Not to cut Eve’s hair?”

Jason eyes her for a moment, and then shrugs.

“Sure. You know she’ll just find another hairdresser? But you can give me money, and I’ll make myself unavailable… a thousand pound would make me unavailable for a month.”

Villanelle nods easily, delighted to have found such a straightforward solution. “Eve won’t find a new hairdresser, she’ll just wait for you to be available… she likes the things she likes. Do you have paypal?

…..

A month.

Villanelle can do a lot in a month. A month feels like a life time. 

She smiles at her ceiling from her bed, and thinks about Eve, Eve’s hair, Eve’s hair tumbling down her bare back, Eve in her bed, Villanelle pressing her face into Eve’s hair as she moans softly-

…..

A month is a very long time Villanelle thinks happily, two days later. 

Carolyn is giving them a briefing on something or other. Villanelle pantomimes attentiveness as she considers her next steps. Images appear on the screen next to Carolyn, a building plan and then a seating layout of a restaurant, a car…

Eve is sitting to her left, at her desk, propping her chin up on the heel of her palm.

Her hair is down.

Villanelle can’t look at her without being obvious, so has to settle for quick glances, every couple of minutes or so.

Every time she looks at Eve, Eve isn’t looking at her.

But. 

It feels like.

Maybe…

…..

It’s slightly startling, to find herself in the bathroom with Eve.

Villanelle was here first. Villanelle had needed to escape Carolyn’s incredibly dull briefing on whatever it was, and so she’d made her excuses. 

She’d been inspecting her reflection in the mirror, when the bathroom door had banged, and then she wasn’t alone any more.

Eve had definitely followed _her_ in.

Her hair was up. Villanelle can see the soft hairs at the nape of her neck, and longs to touch. 

Eve glances at her reflection. Villanelle feels a sudden urge to look busy. 

“So… I had a very strange conversation with my hairdresser yesterday.”

Villanelle feels her brows flicker, and shit. She knew she should have just killed him, why over complicate her perfectly simple plan with _other people?_

“Who is your hairdresser again?” Villanelle says casually, hoping against hope that she can maybe style it out. Eve gives her a look that very clearly says that any such hope is exceedingly stupid. 

“You like my hair as it is.” It’s said flatly, so flat that Villanelle can’t gain any hint at all from Eve’s tone.

But… this is a compliment, surely? This whole… whatever Villanelle has been awkwardly trying to achieve, it is all simply because Villanelle is desperately trying to find a way to tell Eve that she likes her hair.

“Yes… very much. I like your hair very much. Please don’t cut it.”

Eve stares at her for a long moment, and then laughs quietly, looking slightly surprised.

“And this was why you’ve been behaving so strangely these past days… because you didn’t want me to get my hair cut…so you… did all of…”

“Well, what else was I supposed to do?”

“I only mentioned it once, I didn’t ever think seriously about it-”

“I didn’t kill anyone. Things could have been worse.”

Eve’s face does something strange, seems to have a small fight against itself, and then she snorts, and then laughs, in the most magnificent roll of laughter that Villanelle has ever experienced.

Eve subsides after a moment, and then smiles at her, inviting confidence. “You are a funny thing” she says, and it’s almost soft, almost warm-

Villanelle can’t breath.

“You remember the first time we met?” she manages, watching Eve carefully for her reaction.

Eve manages to give her no reaction at all, and some part of Villanelle wonders if her fascination with Eve is partly born from the fact that she finds her almost impossible to read sometimes.

“Yes” Eve says. Villanelle smiles slightly, and then gestures around them, and then between them.

“This reminds me of that.”

Eve tilts her face away from Villanelle slightly, so she’s watching her from the corner of her eyes. Villanelle doesn’t get a reaction other than that.

After a moment, Villanelle continues. “You took your hair down then.”

Eve smiles, looking down at the counter for a second. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“Do it for me this time.”

Eve does so slowly, so slowly…

“You could have just told me that you liked my hair.”

“I like all of you” Villanelle replies, breathlessly. Eve bites her lip.

“Come here” she whispers.

Villanelle means to, she really does mean to, but all that happens is that her hand reaches out to Eve, until she’s brushing her fingers gently across Eve’s cheek, before twirling her fingers hesitantly into Eve’s hair.

Eve’s eyes close briefly.

“Come here” she murmurs again, and this time Villanelle manages to follow instructions. She presses her whole body against Eve, because she just needs the closeness, and then-

Eve’s mouth opens against hers easily, and then her thumbs are brushing across Villanelle’s cheeks, before firm fingers are at the back of her neck, holding her close. Villanelle sighs slightly in approval, and Eve’s lips are moving against hers, kissing her as though this is what she has always wanted, this is what they should have been doing since that first bathroom, a hundred years ago.

Her hands are in Eve’s hair. Villanelle loves it, but she also loves the feeling of Eve pressed into her, and this is new information that has Villanelle absolutely drowning in the details.

Eve’s tongue swipes against her own once, as a promise of unfinished business, and then she moves her mouth away slightly, pressing her lips to Villanelle’s cheek briefly. Villanelle sighs, and rests her forehead against Eve’s. 

“We need to go back to the briefing, Carolyn is not a stupid woman.”

“Mmm, your hairdresser owes me one thousand pounds.”

Eve leans back even further, and squints at her in bemusement.

“What?”

Villanelle sighs, drunk on the memory of Eve’s mouth.

“I paid him, money, so he wouldn’t cut your hair, which I guess he didn’t, but also, he told you, which… hmm.”

Eve is laughing at her again.

“What are you talking about?”

Villanelle shrugs, and then grins, impossibly pleased with how everything has worked out. 

“Nothing. It was worth it.”

…..

**Author's Note:**

> OI OI


End file.
